Josh Mack blogging at the intersection of technology and the liberal arts, and occasionally on; bicycles, politics, Brooklyn, parenting, crafts, and good reading. Currently helping to build a new NYC neighborhood news site - nearsay.com, that celebrates the voices that make our city. Subscribe to the daily newsletter it gives you what you need to know.

March 31, 2009

"Putz: literally, a diminutive form of penis;
a prick. Used, as we do in English to describe a nasty, unlikable man. A putz generally has no real power, except to make your life miserable or at least unpleasant, often in a passive-aggressive way. See also Shmuck."

As I see it either way the Mets' J.J Putz is going to get teased this year in NY. It's a Yiddish town. If he wins for the Mets then we get a lot of headlines that we chuckle over and his opponents will think he is a putz, and if he has a bad season we'll will think he is a shmuck. Is there a joke to be made about a double header?

I agree that it is a shame that Amazon turned off the audio at the request of the Author's Guild but I hadn't thought of Doctorow's bigger point - the fact that Amazon COULD turn off the audio on specific books is the real issue.

March 30, 2009

I guess we first heard this song on A Prairie Home Companion. I wanted to put that right up front as I know for some readers that will be enough to skip this post. For those of you undettered by this, be aware that this tune is infectious, you won't be able to get it out of your head. If you are a man then you can look forward to trying to do this with your wife or child and being corrected often (possibly a sexist comment but I'm willing to guess that most small boys don't pattycake). If you want to play it not only will you have to learn a new long song, but a new motor skill to boot. You could also just sit back and play this video over and over, and then sing the chorus to your baby (big or small). Lyrics after the jump.

Over at MediaShift's IdeaLab on PBS, Jay Rosen is collecting information from commenters on the # of local news stories in their papers.

This link/tip in from a reader. I note this as I'd love more tips and links from readers. It is pretty thrilling to have readers in the first place, so thank you. And the fact that this comes from Simon Owens is great.

Update: the NYObserver is reporting that the NYT is going to drop the City Section and possibly its regional weeklies. So one less thing to count.

The NYT launches a new blog about language authored by Ben Schott. It's fun. Schott's career trajectory is kind of remarkable. a few years ago when he was a photographer, he made little booklets filled with arcana for his friends as Christmas presents. These led to the first miscellany books and now what looks like a mini-empire of facts.

Just noticed that TPM put their video on this sub-domain. I love their day in 100 seconds. It has some fine editing and has more of a focus on politics that the video on the Daily Show. You get to see amazing house committee snippets as well as idiocy from calbe and morning news shows. (Is there a Gary Ackerman fan club on facebook? Love his accent and demeanor.) Also they are creating quite a shrine to the genius of Michael Steele, who is now claiming that everything he does is planned.

A little investigation into the awful word bromance. I think it is very funny that it originated in a risque skateboard magazine that was purchased by Larry Flynt. Looks like it took six years to hit the mainstream.

At one point we had three copies of The Power Broker in our house. Here are some brilliant maps that take google maps and draw Moses planned highways through Manhattan. Just imagine what the city would have been like if they had been built. (via Kottke.org)

I'm really enjoying watching this show on Hulu and this post really captures why. From the casting to the fantastic use of NYC as the alternate universe setting - the Apthorp as a castle, the Jazz at Lincoln Center theater as the King's board room, etc. I'm kind of a sucker for classical dramas set in modern places and this is just wonderful. Hope it survives in the ratings so I can find out what vow the Princess took that is keeping her away from David.

March 22, 2009

Such a hard legacy and sad to read this. seems that forty years today Ted Hughes' mistress, the woman he left Plath for, killed herself and her one year old daughter. So young Nicholas not only lost his mother but his step-mother figure to suicide.

Danny Sullivan of Searchengineland critiques an article on TechCrunch. I'll admit to not actually reading the article as the headlines of both were at the top of TechMeme and this one was just so much more compelling.

I'm changing the style of the cover letters I've been writing. Hoping to find one that is effective for the few appealing roles I've been seeing. This seems like good advice as earlier ones I've penned have restated my resume to much.

Interesting article and report, which if I'm reading it correctly states that local businesses spend more on their sites than advertising. Therefore they are relying on search engines to put them up front. Ironic since their attention to SEO is horrible. So often they build their sites in flash with no attention to html versions. Basically every restaurant site I've ever visited has had a flash based site with a splashy entrance page so I end up going to menupages. I'm doing a small SEO project right now for a friend who has a short-term office space business. He has two sites both in flash. For one I added alt tags, descriptions etc and for the other I simply rebuilt it on squarespace. Not only has this already increased calls but it also makes it updatable at no additional cost. What do you think are the best ways to help local businesses get this right.

March 16, 2009

My friend Kael has made this widget and written a good post on AIG. The widget will update as more is known. This is as Talking Points Memo writes a real make or break time for the President and his administration to look as if they are really in control and restore public trust in the markets and the bailout plan. How can an effectively bankrupt company claim to contractually owe 450 million dollars (wsj) in bonuses to its employees?

Clay Shirky in a must-read post on newspapers and change as well. "That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn’t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can’t predict what will happen." looking at the world of the 1500's after Gutenberg. Read with S. Johnson's.

the text of a speech given at SXSW on the future of the news ecosystem by Steven Johnson. "...I think that steady transformation from desert to jungle may be the single most important trend we should be looking at when we talk about the future of news. Not the future of the news industry, or the print newspaper business: the future of news itself." Much as I am ambivalent about him on a personal level, given my experience at outside.in. He is doing what he does best here. Synthesizing memes and thoughts, going meta, making them personal, and explaining them very eloquently. I like the part where he describes the fact that we think we are in a jungle when in fact it is a desert. One thing he leaves out is the effect search has on all of these voices. It is one off the lynchpins to finding out what is happening around us. kosmix.com, google, daylife as early examples.

A detailed guide to the different plates and identifications of the Penny Black, the world's first adhesive stamp put out in Gt. Britain in 1840. I bought one of these when I was a kid on the 6th floor of the Gimble's Department Store on 86th and Lexington avenue. I was looking into selling it.

Excellent list of products and services that are the essential kit for using social media to promote yourself, a cause, an organization,or a company. People always want to know this and Susan sums it up really well. It isn't rocket science you just need to know where to look and how to combine things. For more specialized things, I might add scribed to the list since I've heard about some great results putting book excerpts into it. Also upcoming are great forms and data widgets from a company called blankslate but they haven't launched yet

March 11, 2009

Excellent list of products and services that are the essential kit for using social media to promote yourself, a cause, an organization,or a company. People always want to know this and Susan sums it up really well. It isn't rocket science you just need to know where to look and how to combine things. For more specialized things, I might add scribed to the list since I've heard about some great results putting after book excerpts into it. Also upcoming are great forms and data widgets from a company called blankslate but they haven't launched yet